


laisse tomber le verre

by mybelovedcheshire



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M, book!verse, just angry angry apolloing going on, lots of anger and, not a faerietale ending, porny but not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 18:59:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/665350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybelovedcheshire/pseuds/mybelovedcheshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras is in a foul mood, and as a result, Courfeyrac and Combeferre decide that the best option for everyone is to let Grantaire deal with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	laisse tomber le verre

“Perhaps we should go,” Courfeyrac murmured to Combeferre. They had retreated to the corner farthest away from Enjolras, but still glanced apprehensively at him from across the room. 

Combeferre tucked a pamphlet into his waistcoat pocket as he silently observed their leader. 

Enjolras had taken up a position by the window over two hours ago, and hadn’t moved since. His eyes were on a detailed map of Paris, but it was obvious to even the most obtuse observer that his mind was far, far away. Combeferre and Courfeyrac knew where and why — with the Cougourde, in Aix — but that didn’t make the situation any less tense. 

“We could,” Combeferre consented, “but if we do, he might not move until morning.”

It was a justified concern with Enjolras. In moments of frustration, when there was no physical solution to a problem, his quiet detachment would overwhelm his passion. He easily fell into his own thoughts and became rooted there, turning the situation over again and again in his mind until the logic of it — fully explored — became clear. It meant having whole hours pass him by unobserved, but the alternative of being aware but having no outlet for his aggression was far more unpleasant. 

He was a marvellous creature, Enjolras — and sometimes a danger to himself. 

Courfeyrac’s mouth thinned at the prospect of interrupting that reverie. He looked Combeferre in the eye with a bluntness that read: ‘Better you than me.’

Combeferre hung his head. 

There was nothing they could do for him. They were aware of what had plunged him into his present state of dark meditation — the news had reached them that afternoon. A friend, not a close one but nevertheless a strong, respected ally, had been executed just two days previous as a traitor to the crown of France. Malin, as he was called, had been a lieutenant of the Cougourde — a sister society to the society of the Friends of the ABC — and he was guilty of every crime read against him. 

As were most of the Amis. 

Not one of them regarded his actions as criminal — they mourned him. They each raised a glass in his name once they were gathered, even the austerely sober Enjolras. They praised their fallen comrade, and drank deeply to the inevitable downfall of the regime that had murdered him. (At which point Grantaire had ceased to be delighted with the presence of wine, and rolled his eyes.) 

But with no disrespect to Malin, it wasn’t a personal sadness that caused the tightness in Enjolras’s jaw as he stared blankly into oblivion. They had lost a critical link in the revolution’s chain — a link that could not easily be replaced. 

The inevitable delay in giving his beloved France her freedom vexed him. They had been so close.

Any other man might have picked up his unfinished wine, tipped it back, and taken to the bottle. Most of the Amis did. Enjolras did not. He toasted once, sipped reverently, and put the glass to the side. He sat. He stayed quiet. And under that cold façade, he raged.

Courfeyrac could see the fire blazing in his eyes. Combeferre could read the anger in the set of his jaw. At least in its current state, that fury was contained, and neither man had the slightest desire to release it from its marble cage.

At the middle table, Grantaire swore loudly. Combeferre and Courfeyrac froze. With all of their attention on Enjolras, they had completely forgotten that Grantaire was there. 

Enjolras didn’t react. 

They breathed a guilt-ridden sigh of relief — but as they did so, a slightly morbid third option dawned on them. Rather than rousing Enjolras or leaving him to his fate, they could leave him to the fate of another — his doting Pylades. 

Grantaire leaned over a piece of wine-stained paper, scribbling in the sloppiest handwriting known to man. Even Joly’s was better, and his penmanship was comparable to the tracks left by small birds in the snow. 

Combeferre and Courfeyrac exchanged uneasy looks. 

“We absolutely can’t,” Combeferre insisted.

“We can,” Courfeyrac corrected. 

“One of them will die.”

“Twenty francs that they both do.”

It was a challenge not to smile at that.

“Should we tell Grantaire?” Combeferre asked after a moment. The resident cynic was as preoccupied with his own business as Enjolras, and oblivious to the conspirators in the corner. 

They didn’t. They fled. 

The next hour came and went unobserved. And the next, and the next as Enjolras silently revisited 1789 inside his own head, and Grantaire — who did nothing silently, or in stillness — searched endlessly for the perfect metaphor to describe a buxom woman at the height of climax. 

Despite their devotion, it was unlikely that either man would receive notoriety for their efforts.

Grantaire, prompted by a sudden onset of fidgeting, was the first to break. He yawned and reached for the nearest bottle, and found it depressingly empty. The wine glasses scattered across the table were no different. Frowning, he searched beyond the reach of his own arms, and found the one thing he genuinely didn’t expect to see: Enjolras. 

“What time is it?” Grantaire called out to him in a sleepy drawl as he rubbed his face with both hands. He had no idea where he’d left his coat, his watch, or his hat, and he was in no hurry to find any of them. 

Enjolras didn’t answer. 

Grantaire peered at him through his fingers. “Enjolras?”

The word ‘statue’ sprang to mind for the thousandth time as Enjolras remained impossibly inert. 

Grantaire stood up and crossed the room with an impudent swagger. “Are you deliberately ignoring me? You of all people should that there is nothing less effective. I’m immune. I am the rock which anchors find in the depths. I am impossible to drive out.”

He laid one hand on Enjolras’s shoulder, and snapped the fingers of the other in the young revolutionary’s face. 

Enjolras didn’t jump. He didn’t startle — it wasn’t in him to be surprised. Unlike Joly, who might have jumped out of his skin, Enjolras kept perfectly calm. Only his eyes snapped to attention, focusing on Grantaire’s hand.

Grantaire chuckled smugly. “Welcome to the land of the living, and the unhappily sober,” he said with his customary dry cynicism. “Enjoy your stay. I, however, will be going now—” and as he said so, he reached over the map in the middle of the little table, and picked up Enjolras’s unfinished wine. 

As quick as a cobra, Enjolras grabbed him firmly by the wrist. 

It was Grantaire who spooked. Wine splashed across his hand, dripping down his fingers as they contracted sharply around the glass. He was lucky it didn’t shatter, and he alluded to the fact with a slew of obscene swearing. “For fucking mercy!” Red blotches blossomed across the Latin Quarter. 

Enjolras rose from his chair, not letting go of Grantaire, but rather guiding his wet hand away from Paris. His blue eyes, usually bright and pensive, blazed with a dangerous glitter of authority. 

“Let go,” he instructed quietly. 

Grantaire blinked. It was all he could do to keep from being eviscerated by the demand in his gaze. 

“Let the glass go,” Enjolras repeated. 

It slowly tipped to the side. The wine poured to the floor, and not long after, the glass followed — shattering at their feet.

Enjolras still didn’t loosen his hold. He didn’t look away. He was fixated. 

Grantaire was finding it difficult to breath. 

Enjolras stood only an inch or two taller than him, but it felt like several feet. He cowered beneath that brightness. 

But there is a distinction between men afraid and men enamoured. Grantaire, falling into the latter category, also fell victim to a certain implacable rashness. Instead of feeling faint and pale, his face grew hotter. 

His own blue eyes seemed a little sharper. 

And with the courage of a man who had nothing left to lose, he very lightly dragged his fingers along Enjolras’s skin. 

It was Orestes’s turn to break.

Grantaire should have known better.

In his lust — the dreamy distraction of his desperation — he had neglected to account for the fire that accompanied his marble Orestes. Courfeyrac and Combeferre had fled, rather than face the flames, leaving Grantaire — the hapless drunk — to be the victim. 

The friction of Grantaire’s fingers against the side of Enjolras’s hand — as little and gentle as it was — set them both ablaze.

Enjolras breathed out, Grantaire breathed in, and when their lips met, they could taste raw energy. 

It hurt. 

Grantaire imploringly pressed against Enjolras. He dug the fingers of his free hand deep into that golden hair and held tight. Enjolras ferally thrust him against the wall. He was driven by instinct — from the way he pushed against him, to the way he held Grantaire’s wrist beside his head. He crushed his body against Grantaire’s because he had to. Because Grantaire was cold, and he was hot, and something had to be done. 

Enjolras dragged his teeth over Grantaire’s jaw. Grantaire exhaled sharply. 

It wasn’t enough. 

The first time their hips met, Enjolras felt something savage grip his heart. He sank down on his heels, his knees bending as he dug his thigh between Grantaire’s legs. He didn’t need to know what was happening. He didn’t care. 

In too many ways, it didn’t matter. 

Grantaire pulled Enjolras’s head back sharply and ran his lips over the softest, most tender part of his neck. 

Enjolras didn’t make a sound. 

Grantaire bit down, but still nothing, so he nuzzled — lovingly nuzzled — his face against Enjolras’s shoulder, and licked the hollow just above his collar bone. Enjolras closed his eyes. 

Some dark voice inside Grantaire’s mind screamed victoriously. 

He was lucky to be just a little bit dark. 

Enjolras let go of his hand, and for a moment, panic descended. But it was gone in a heartbeat as he was seized by the hips. Enjolras pressed his mouth to the same place on Grantaire’s neck — he was learning. His warm mouth burned a hot trail of rough kisses and rougher bites from one shoulder to the other and back up to his sweet cynic’s mouth which he abusively devoured. He was wild. 

Grantaire was utterly enraptured. With his hands free, he fumbled — he abandoned any pretence that Enjolras might not know what he was doing and dug his hands between them. Trousers were an easy thing to peel off in reality, but it wasn’t easy to keep away from Enjolras now that he was finally — fucking finally — allowed to touch him. Buttons were a figment of his imagination. The cloth between them only a mirage, because he could feel for the first god damn time how hard Enjolras really was. 

There was something deeply reaffirming in that. 

Enjolras’s hands clenched into fists. He pinned their hips together and rocked against Grantaire’s fingers because his body told him to — because it was an outlet for all that rage that he’d been harbouring, and because it gave him such a blissful little thrill. It wasn’t quite enough, but it didn’t take him very long to work that out. 

Within minutes their trousers hung around their ankles. Grantaire dug his fingers helplessly into the top of the table that Enjolras had bodily flung him into it. He clawed at the wood and Enjolras clawed at him. There were red streaks all along his back — bruises he would treasure in the morning. He could already feel the soreness in the bones of hips as they smacked the table over and over. 

He would have whimpered if it had been in him to do so, but it wasn’t. 

Enjolras kissed the back of neck — panted, really, against Grantaire’s skin — and the dark-haired cynic shook from head to toe. He was already a mess, just completely obliterated by everything Enjolras had done to him, and kept doing to him, and wouldn’t stop doing to him. Enjolras had been in possession of his heart for years, and now he was slowly pulling Grantaire’s body apart piece by piece. 

Grantaire slammed his hand down on the table and tried to cling to the smooth wooden surface. His fingers found the edge of that wine-stained map of Paris and locked around it, crushing it in his fist. It was something to hold on to and God in heaven, he needed that if he was expected to remember his own name when the sun came up. 

He was sober Pylades, and Orestes had consumed him. 

Enjolras sank his teeth into Grantaire’s shoulder. The table scraped an inch or two along the floorboards as he exhaled and all but collapsed against Grantaire’s back. They were both sweating, and the contact of their slick skin sent shivers down their spines. 

Enjolras slid his hand down the length of Grantaire’s arm. 

With utterly bizarre tenderness, Enjolras peeled his fingers apart. Grantaire licked his lips and traced the same line down the side of Enjolras’s palm that he had however long ago. 

His Orestes did not answer. 

Enjolras took the map out from underneath his fingers and gently spread it back out. He smoothed the creases with soft touches and caressed the corners until they were content to lie flat, all the while pressed against Grantaire, and seemingly unaware of him. 

Grantaire rested his head against the tabletop, and breathed in the scent of spilled wine.


End file.
